spin

I guess I needed to go back through the cryptic responses you've made to find this:

The canonical epistles are post-Marcion.
Marcionite epistles preceed them.

I.e., the Marcionite forms of the Pauline epistles precede the canonical forms and, when you said that the epistles were "post-Marcionite antimarcionite forgeries", you were referring specifically to the differences Couchoud notes between the Marcionite and canonical forms of the epistles. This way your comment seems to make more sense and I would have to weigh up Couchoud to make a better evaluation.


spin

aa5874

First of all, my source does not have the word "Paul".

"Against Marcion" 5.1 Next, Tertullian wrote "Against Marcion" after Marcion's death . Tertullian in his writing admitted there are already erroneous information already scattered about "full of mistakes" with respect to Marcion.

I am of the opinion that Tertullian is really mistaken about Marcion.

If Paul personally wrote epistles to the Churches, and these epistles were known to be written by Paul and were in possession of the Churches since around 50 -65CE, with Paul himself being an actual living person whom the Churches knew by face during his missionary work and was known to be martyred, bearing in mind that Acts would have been written around 50-65 CE, I find it difficult to understand why Marcion, 70- 100 years later, would then need the Pauline Epistles to propagate another God and another Jesus, especially since Paul would have already been established as receiving "his gospel" from the son of the God of the Jews.

Paul's God is not Marcion's God and that would have been established about 70-100 years before Marcion. Why would Marcion use personal letters bearing Paul's name written to close acquaintances who all worshipped the God of the Jews and his Son, the very same Gods that Marcion detested?

It makes more sense to me that Marcion was using anonymous writings which were later claimed by Tertullian and others to belong to "Paul", and then perhaps, Acts of the Apostles was written anonymously afterwards to try to manufacture a "history" for Paul.

Against Marcion 5.2 So, on one hand Tertullian claims Marcion uses Paul and then next he says Marcion rejected Paul and Acts.

The first five books of the NT are still anonymous today, I am inclined to think the epistles were also anonymous, at one time, based on Justin Martyr extant writings, since he never mentioned any authors of the NT and quoted extensively from writings called "memoirs of the apostles".

Ben C Smith

You are correct that the first quote I gave is not the best. Evans (the translator) may have taken liberties. The rest, however, are conclusive.

Then why on earth did you quote Tertullian to show that the Marcionite gospel was anonymous?

And your opinion counts for precisely nothing. The brute fact remains that Marcion appears to have known about the apostle Paul, based on our information from Tertullian, Irenaeus, and others. Your incessantly repeated claim that it appears that Paul postdates Justin is mistaken on its face. Rather, it appears that Paul predates Marcion. If you wish to argue otherwise, you have to argue against appearances, something like: It appears from Tertullian and others that Marcion knew of Paul, but appearances can be deceiving. The fact that you did not argue this way implies that you had no knowledge before this conversation what Tertullian said about Marcion and Paul, which in turn implies that you made your solemn pronouncements about what the century II evidence appears to indicate without even the most basic information about century II, namely that Marcion was accused of having played Paul against the proto-orthodox church.

Another misinterpretation.... Here is the Latin:

Quodsi et ex hoc congruunt Paulo apostolorum acta, cur ea respuatis iam apparet....

The pronoun ea (neuter plural) refers back to the apostolorum acta (neuter plural), not to Paulo (masculine singular). The English pronoun is them because the word acts is plural. Marcion rejects the Acts (them), not both the Acts and Paul.

Ben.

aa5874

Well, why did you post information that you knew in advance had errors or mis-leading? If I did not show you the error, you may have not admitted that the translator may have taken liberties. You seem to be clinging to straws.

To show that Tertullian is inconsistent and contradictory. Tertullian claimed Marcion seemed to use the Gospel of Luke, yet to this day, all the Gospels and Acts are anonymous. It is therefore highly unlikely that Marcion could have known any Gospel named "Luke".

Well, wouldn't it cross your mind that your opinion is of a similar value? I only deal with evidence or information that is available.


The history of "Paul" as written in Acts is regarded as fiction. Tertullian admitted that there are erroneous information about Marcion that is being scattered about, coming from Tertullian's own pen. Tetullian and Irenaeus wrote when Marcion had already died. And Justin Martyr never mentioned Paul, but mentioned Marcion.

There are no brute facts, except that the history of Paul is regarded as fiction by scholars and this fictitious history of Paul is mentioned by Tertullian and Irenaeus after Justin Martyr and Marcion's death.


Ben, I do not understand you when you write in Latin or Greek, and I am very wary of your translations. I am not able confirm if your passages, in whatever language, are free of errors.

Tertullian 5.2, It should be obvious that if Marcion rejected one, he must have rejected the other, if both Acts and Paul are in agreement. And Acts is regarded as the fictitious history of Paul by scholars.

Amaleq13

You find an error in one quote out of six and ignore the other five but he is "clinging to straws"?

:rolling:

Not on your best day and his worst would this notion cross anyone's mind familiar with you both.

There can be no real question whose opinion carries more weight but the point was to focus on the evidence instead of simply repeating yourself over and over and over.

Ben C Smith

I did not know in advance that the Latin was in question. I checked only several of the quotations (in the Latin) before posting, and not that one. It was my mistake, and I admitted as much. Let us see if you can do the same for yours.

I am always happy to correct my errors, whether I find them myself or somebody else points them out to me.

If the gospels and acts are anonymous to this day, is it not also unlikely that anyone to this day could know of any gospel named Luke?

You ignore broad swaths of evidence. I am not presenting my opinion for you to accept. I presented you with hard quotes from Tertullian; you may choose to focus on the one quote that was not up to snuff, but the others are still there awaiting your analysis.

Would you care to present an actual analysis of the Tertullianic statement that led you to this conclusion?

But also when his texts were still around.

I shall repeat the same question I asked earlier: How do you know that Justin never mentioned Paul when we are missing most of what Justin ever wrote?

What does the history of Paul (I presume you mean that found in Acts) have to do with anything? Whether the epistles were attributed to Paul by the time Marcion wrote has nothing logically to do with how accurate his biographers were.

That is fine. You are free to check them with anyone you trust who knows Latin.

This is so unobvious as to also be unanswerable as an assertion.

Ben.

schilling.klaus

It's not anonymous,the author is the Lord (Jesus),
in accordance with the Marcionite statement that Paul received his revelation not from any man, but from the Lord, as opposed to the fake gospel of the Roman Catholic church, represented in Galatians by Peter and James.

Klaus Schilling

mountainman

Why not? Who's hegemon here is claiming infallibility?



Best wishes,



Pete Brown

aa5874

Who wrote the third book of the NT? Luke? Where in the the third book can you find that name? Maybe it's Paul. See Church History 3.4.

It is not known who wrote the book referred to as "Luke", it is anonymous.

Ben C Smith

Your original argument was this (emphasis mine):

What I am asking you is this: What prevents us from making this same argument about anybody right up to the present day?

Ben claims Pastor X uses the gospel of Luke in his sermons, yet to this day all the gospels and acts are anonymous. It is therefore highly unlikely that Pastor X could know any gospel named Luke.

The number of people who know a gospel named Luke today is phenomenal. They number in the hundreds of millions, at least, and likely in the billions.

That is a very good question, and one that you are not answering with your repeated and illogical assertions.

Maybe. I am undecided.

In the superscript (title) or in the subscript, just as in so many ancient texts. It is frequently hypothesized that Luke was originally published anonymously, but it is certainly not anonymous now, nor was it anonymous in the early third century, and it may not have been anonymous in the time of Marcion. Irenaeus knew a gospel named Luke, and it is possible that Marcion did, too (my own mind is not made up on the issue). Repeating over and over again that the gospels are anonymous even to this day is both misleading and unhelpful.

Ben.